Is it possible to combine non-dualist spirituality, revolutionary socialist politics, modern insights into culture and memes, a skeptical attitude and a sense of humour? Only one way to find out.

14 August 2010

Narrative

A childish mind believes that the world acts like a story.

An adult mind knows better, and believes that stories are "just stories".

An enlightened mind knows that stories, narratives and myths don't describe how the world works, but precisely and accurately describe psychological processes - and therefore explain how people work.

The commies out there will have noted that this is a pretty neat Hegelian dialectic, with the last step being the negation of the negation (also in the sense that an enlightened being will have to have both adult and child minds operating in complementary fashion). The story world is a refraction of the Real World of Horrible Jobs. The menu is not just words on paper, even though you can't eat it; if you can use it properly, you can gain delicious things to eat.

Intentionality is absolutely vital. The best act in the world done on "automatic" will do no-one and nothing any good. The real issue is that most people think they're acting intentionally when they're really being half robot and half machine.